Countries where people use Hindi as their first language

Hindi is used by 602 million individuals in more than 50 countries countries as either their mother tongue (‘L1’) or as a second language (‘L2’). It is also one of two national official languages within India (the other being English), where more than 98% of its speakers are located. Despite its official status, Hindi is just one of 452 Indian languages in one of the most linguistically diverse countries on the planet, and is the L1 language for less than 30% of India’s population (Derivation).

To encourage wider adoption, the language is the focus of a unique annual national language event called Hindi Diwas ('Hindi Day'), held each year on September 14th, to promote its continued usage within Hindi-speaking states and across India as a whole. The formal origins of this event date back to an agreement being reached within the Constitution of India, on 14 September 1949, which defined Hindi and English as official Government languages (Wikipedia).

In addition to its traditional written and spoken forms, Hindi is also one of the strongest and most influential digital languages, globally and nationally. Hindi is a ‘supported Thriving language’ across a range of digital platforms, offering access to digital content, spell checkers, speech recognition and even voice assistants (e.g., Alexa).